Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Crimes of England

What were the crimes of England? According to G.K. Chesterton, writing in 1915, they were mostly to do with England siding with Prussia. This bias towards Germany, going back at least to the days of Frederick the Great, helped cause the Napoleonic conflict, barbarism against the Irish, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the then unfolding horrors of World War I. Nothing quite like a bold call, thank you GKC.

With the caveat that "a little Chesterton can go a long way" and whether you agree with him or not, he writes with a bravado that can be startling. Here he is on "the idea of the Citizen."

The idea of the Citizen is that his individual human nature shall be constantly and creatively active in altering the State. The Germans are right in regarding the idea as dangerously revolutionary. Every Citizenis a revolution. That is, he destroys, devours and adapts his environment to the extent of his own thought or conscience.

Every Citizen is a revolution? There are times when GKC is like a charge, a very clever, quick-footed and amusing charge, but a charge nonetheless.

I think GKC would argue that if England hadn't legitimised Prussia a lot of wickedness would've been avoided. Well, it's an over the horizon angle and makes for interesting WWI polemic. Rare little book.

LSP said " if England hadn't legitimised Prussia a lot of wickedness would've been avoided." Do we have the Prussian legitimacy to blame for the wondrous wonders of the crafting of our public schools? And possibly John Dewey's ideas gaining widespread acceptance? That would be another of the Crimes. Also, didn't progressivism gain significant traction during this perior? Is there a connection?

Uknown, I prefaced that with "I think GKC would argue that..." But to the point, is there a connection between Prussianism, progressivism and public schoolism? Chesterton says there is, in Frederick the Great.

Christendom might quite reasonably have been alarmed if it had not been attacked. But as a matter of history it had been attacked. The Crusader would have been quite justified in suspecting the Moslem even if the Moslem had merely been a new stranger; but as a matter of history he was already an old enemy. The critic of the Crusade talks as if it had sought out some inoffensive tribe or temple in the interior of Thibet, which was never discovered until it was invaded. They seem entirely to forget that long before the Crusaders had dreamed of riding to Jerusalem, the Moslems had almost ridden into Paris. They seem to forget that if the Crusaders nearly conquered Palestine, it was but a return upon the Moslems who had nearly conquered Europe.

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

"But the idea of punishing a public man as a public enemy has, for good or evil, become an impossibility. And the idea of taking away the private wealth of a public man is equally inconceivable, especially if he is a really wealthy man... But at least it is certain that modern government makes life for the governing classes safer; and never before in the whole history of the world has it been so safe a business to govern." (On the Pillory)